


Almost Left Behind

by lllsssr



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-10-07 00:51:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10348686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lllsssr/pseuds/lllsssr
Summary: Onstage, the band strummed gently into a chilled down version of “Time After Time,” and as the hairsprayed Cyndi Lauper impersonator crooned about the second-hand unwinding, he hoped that it wasn’t true. That this really wouldn’t last forever.***As a teenager in the 80s, Tony stumbles onto a radio that can talk to outer space. The conversations he has with a certain alien now change his adult life later.





	1. The Man on the Line

            Tony stood near the buffet with his two closest friends: half-deflated orange balloon and Jack Daniel's.

            Ahead, on the dancefloor, the Winter Formal undulated in all its neon gaudiness. The girls, in their floofy dresses, looked like birds primed for mating, while the boys each did their best Running Man to the admiration of their friends, and the swears of those they elbowed as collateral damage. For a bunch of boarding school kids, this was probably as close as any of them would come to a mosh pit.

            Onstage, the band strummed gently into a chilled down version of “Time After Time,” and as the hairsprayed Cyndi Lauper impersonator crooned about the second-hand unwinding, he hoped that it wasn’t true. That this really wouldn’t last forever.

            Why had he come here again? Correction: why had he not just come, but even bribed the chunky security guard at the door to give him passage even though he was banned for bad behavior? He wasn’t doing anything here, in the corner with his flask, that couldn’t be done in one of the empty science labs where he usually spent his time tinkering. Well, it had seemed less depressing this way. Even at 15, he knew the signs of premature alcoholism, and getting drunk and singing along to Pink Floyd’s _Wish You Were Here_ until he passed out on an old circuit board was definitely one of them. Anyway, he was wrong about this being the less depressing of the two. Hanging near the buffet should have put him in sight of most of the people here, but everyone who approached passed him over for the chicken tenders and watered-down punch. The phrase, “What am I, chopped liver?” came to mind, but it was the wrong food.

            Altogether, he had maybe two friends here, and that was after simplifying the math of four half-friends. That was, people he knew in passing. They had the ill fortune of sitting next to him in classes. Sometimes they broke down and partnered with him on the group projects, if he promised to do the higher-level work and slap their names on it. On rare occasions, they even entertained polite half-conversations. But here, where everyone was coupled, or at least clustered with friends, there was always someone better to talk to, always someone who could step in front if he tried to strike up a joke about how it looked like the gymnasium had been decorated with old, wrinkled Christmas ribbons.

             It was hard to make friends when your IQ was twice most everyone else’s, when your pockets ached with cash, and when you had a deep, psychological need to blow things up, literally or otherwise, all at the same time. The nerds always rejected his schemes to build brewing machines or halfwit AIs who only knew how to respond to commands with “Fuck you.” They had better things to do. And it was impossible to keep a burnout, one of the guys who actually _did_ want to brew booze and say “fuck you” to everything, interested if he talked about circuits or geodesics for longer than even a minute. While his half-friends had the misfortune of pairing with him on projects, he himself had the misfortune of being a pairing of two completely disparate personality traits. He was a walking, talking project himself.

            The only upside in his life was that he was finally coming into his looks. After wearing braces for three years, and charring off the pimpled outer layer of skin with deadly astringents, he was beginning to take on some of Dad’s good looks. OK, so looking like Dad wasn’t an upside, but at least the girls’ eyes lingered on him a little longer, as if recalculating the Fibonacci proportions of his face, before turning their noses up.

            He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his tux. He was tired of being invisible for the night, and luckily, he was just about drunk enough to do something flashy that would make that happen. He kicked Mr. Balloon aside and skirted the dancefloor, dodging rogue elbows and donkey kicks, until he found a familiar face seated on the sidelines, her arms folded, watching the dancers with a nervous-looking hesitation.

            “I’m Tony.” In case she didn’t remember his name. “I like long walks on the beach and trying new things. What about you?” He offered his hand to help her up from the chair.

            But she must not have heard him over the music. She cocked her head like a dog, and stared at his palm for a minute before figuring it out for herself. “You—you want to dance?”

            He nodded. She couldn’t mishear that.

            She flicked her head to either side, as if checking that someone was watching. Then she made a face like “fuck it” and stood up. That was the spirit. He led her onto the floor, toward the squirming center, and tugged their bodies together to set the pace for their gentle swaying.

            “Tony, this is far too close. An arm’s length,” she protested.

            Other dancers were beginning to stare at them. Didn’t matter. This was their moment. He rested his head on her shoulder and shut his eyes, letting her take the lead and carry his drunk weight, just as a fine mist of silver confetti snowed from the ceiling.

            “Can’t, Mrs. Harris.” He hiccupped saying his physics teacher’s name. “If I let go of you, I’m going to lose my balance.”

***

            Dancing with Mrs. Harris hadn’t sparked the rumors Tony hoped it would. He imagined sailing home for Christmas Break on a tide of whispers that the only reason he’d aced his physics midterm was because he’d filled in more than just bubbles on his answer sheet. Alas, his classmates murmured about it the next day during lunch and study hall, but after that, the story mostly dispersed over everyone’s excitement to be returning home. And so, he found himself sitting alone in the echoing mansion on the hill. Even some scolding from Dad was better than nothing.

            Losing out on the Mrs. Harris rumors didn’t mean he stopped trying, though. On his second night home, he crept into Dad’s secret lab, the one where he squirreled away all his serious experiments from hungry eyes. The man was always muttering, paranoid, that he’d become something like a Tesla, having his inventions ripped out from underneath him like a carpet, while some charlatan dragged off the idea to a patenting office and reaped all the credit. Using his inventions to help the public was one thing. The fame of doing so, however, was all the more important to Dad.

            Tony left the door wide open to announce his presence. That was what he wanted after all: for Dad to realize that he’d sneaked into his secret lab and come stomping in. Night was the perfect time to do that since they were both nocturnal creatures by nature. In the meantime, he trailed around the scaffolds of the lab, admiring fresh projects. There were new structures even since the time he’d left for boarding school, this summer. Big ones. Something with hoses that sapped air from a glass case, which was raised on a pivot, suggesting it had the ability to spin. Was Dad interested in making something like a vacuum-sealed chamber with zero gravity? It sounded a lot like space.

            Indeed, it looked like Dad had taken an interest in the stars during his time away. He found a telescope, thicker than his body, jutting upward at the skylight and the blanket of twinkling lights it gave view to. Beside it was an old ham radio setup. Cords tailed out its backside, snaked up the wall, and seemed to squirm into the ceiling. Just then, he noticed the mammoth satellite dish mounted on the roof, barely visible from this angle through the skylight.

            He plopped down on the stool in front of the radio and took the receiver. “Breaker, breaker, one-nine. This is Tony. Would you say Star Trek gives an accurate depiction of your species? Over.”

            He released the button on the receiver. The speaker filled with hoarse static, the sound of silence, which was somehow even more depressing than the Simon and Garfunkel song with the same name.

            “Or are you more of a Star Wars fan? Over.”

            More of the same empty crackling. He tried different frequencies, with different puns, even trying to translate them into the rudimentary Russian he’d picked up from learning ALGOL programming language. If anyone up there wasn’t speaking English, there was a 99% chance they were a cosmonaut. The other 1% was for all the animals Russia and America alike had launched into space. Either way, it didn’t seem to matter. No answer in any language returned from the black depths, not even a bark. He was rapidly losing interest until he realized the joystick beside the ham radio actually _swiveled_ the satellite dish above. Oh, hell yeah.

            He twisted it to the left, though the motors above seemed to protest and groan loudly on their gears. Which was the best direction to aim it? He tipped his head skyward, scanning through the skylight for all the constellations and heavenly bodies he could remember. Big Dipper. Venus. Orion’s Belt. Well, it was obvious the planets held no life, so those were immediately scrapped as pointless destinations. Orion’s Belt seemed promising enough. He had always been rewarded by getting into pants in the past.

            He jerked the joystick forward, and the stamen of the satellite dish raked toward Orion. But wait. His hand froze as he noticed an extra knot on the big man’s belt. A glowing point, though it wasn’t a star, just at the hip. It seemed to wobble like a spinning top viewed from above, or in this case, below. If he stared at it long enough, he would probably get sick. So he stopped staring and stabbed the satellite in its direction, then turned his attention to the radio instruments.

            “Calling all aliens. There is currently a sale on public leaders. Abduct the president, get the vice for free. Touch down for this un-president-ed offer, the ‘buy-one, take-me-two-your-leader’ special.”

            He lifted his finger and the receiver button popped back into place. He didn’t know what he expected—Chewbacca to gargle over the speakers? Again, there was nothing but snaky static.

            Until— “Who—hell—this?” Whisper-quiet, he could just hear the voice over the crackling. “—‘ll kick your ass for hijacking my frequency, nerd.”

            His hands went cold and white. In his mind, he plummeted off the stool and skittered backward on his ass, but his legs were currently frozen in place. A man had responded. Not just a man, but an _angry_ man. If he had broken into a NASA frequency, did that count as a misdemeanor, or a felony? Then again, the man had said this was _his_ frequency. What kind of astronaut had their own line? He was sure that even if Neil Armstrong had made calls home to his family, Buzz and Michael would be nestled right beside him, sitting in and waiting their turn. That meant whoever he was talking to was stranded on the ground, just like himself.

            Regaining some muscle control, he squeezed the receiver again. “Just some radio tower humor.” He gave a polite chuckle. “Checking in. State your coordinates.” The idea was that the man on the other end of the line was a pilot, or some other kind of official who needed a private radio. Maybe a soldier. In that case, Tony was the flight controller or unit commander keeping tabs. He leaned in close to hear the quiet response.

            “How about I give you the coordinates to your room?” The voice had come from directly behind him. This time he did tumble off his stool.

            He looked up, dizzy. Standing just a meter behind him was Dad with his hands in his pockets. Clearly, he couldn’t have been bothered to stop him from falling, or to help him up now. Tony pushed to his feet and dusted himself off.

            “The hell are you doing with my radio?” Dad spoke with his usual icy veneer, as if he was asking nothing more significant than the “how are you” before a cashier transaction. Then again, Dad never cared to ask how people were doing, usually. He glanced around. “The hell are you doing in my lab?”

            “Talking to strangers. Isn’t that what you always taught me?”

            “Knock it off.” He walked around and tapped his loafer against the fallen stool. “Pick this up. And put the radio back in order.”

            Tony righted the stool and then grabbed the receiver. He clicked the button and mumbled into it, “Encountering interference. Will update you as soon as—“

            “The hell are you doing?” Dad slapped the receiver out of his hand and hooked it.

            “I didn’t want to leave him hanging.”

            “Who?”

            “The man on the line.” Maybe Dad had some insight into who that was. “Tell me he’s an astronaut. If he’s just some business pal in Switzerland or wherever, I’m going to be very disappointed that this thing is just a glorified, long-distance telephone.”

            “And I repeat: the hell are you talking about?” Dad frowned below his mustache. “This thing is for sending messages into the heavens, Tony. Far beyond any space station. It doesn’t talk to people.” He glanced up, through the skylight, and the frown turned into a disgusted grimace. “You moved my dish?”

            “I was going to put it back.”

            “Right after you sent it crashing off the roof, I’m sure. I heard the gears grinding from my office.” He twitched his head toward the door. “Get out.”

            Tony knew better than to argue. He dragged himself to the door. Dad followed closely behind, like a drill sergeant, and made sure to lock the door behind him with the thumb-print key. Of course, it mattered little, since there were ways around that, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to sneak in in the first place. On the outside, he heaved a sigh of relief. Two days, and this was his first time seeing Dad. He hadn’t even been there to let him in after his arrival home. The butler opened the door and helped carry his bags up to his room. Since then, Dad had been scarcer than voices in outer space. It took moving a whole satellite setup to rouse an appearance.

            “So … you developed an interest in space while I was away.” Despite the scolding, he took on a conversational tone. “I like your model telescope.”

            “Grounded. Ten days.” He was always specific with his measurements of anything, even grounding.

            “That’s fair.” Only because he knew it meant nothing. Grounding couldn’t be enforced when Dad was never around long enough to jail him. All it took was sticking to the unoccupied wings of the mansion and not crossing paths. Clearly, that wasn’t hard. “Maybe after I’m grounded, we could do something. How about camping? We could stargaze.”

            Dad huffed. “You know how I hate the wilderness.”

            “Then we could stay in a hotel? I’m sure there are hotels for stargazing. Probably New Mexico.”

            Dad squinted like he had said the most unfathomable thing possible. It was the kind of stare that made him regret ever opening his mouth at all.

            “I … I’m sorry.” The pain must have registered on his face, because Dad’s expression changed. Internally, he seemed to be pushing a boulder uphill. It took great effort for him to apologize.

            Even still, all he mustered was, “We’ll talk about it later.”

            He turned and strode away, loafers padding on the reflectively polished floor, so there were two of him escaping the conversation. But hey, it was something. Talking about it later was as close to a promise Tony could hope for. He just wished he hadn’t had to come inches from tears to break Dad down, and make both of them feel guilty in the process.


	2. Hello?

            It took until the next morning, waking up as the slice of sunlight from his window warmed his face, for him to remember what Dad had said about the radio: It didn’t talk to people. Of course, the man on the line had certainly sounded like a people. Either there was a serious kink in the machinery by default, or he had put one there with careening the satellite dish out of position. Either way, the dish was feeding on local frequencies, and he needed to correct it. Dad discovering that he’d tarnished what must have been a million dollars’ worth of sophisticated radio technology didn’t bode well for those future camping plans actually coming into being. On the other hand, if the flaw had been there before he’d touched the dials and joystick, fixing it meant Dad might owe him a favor in return. Hello, New Mexico.

            He pushed out of bed and padded downstairs in his boxers and a Def Leppard T-shirt. Dad liked to keep the mansion a chilly 65 degrees, so he hugged his shoulders as he walked. He was looking forward to a hot plate of pancakes. He’d even settle for oatmeal.

            It was normal for Dad to skip breakfast. The man functioned on a diet of coffee and cigarettes. His body would probably reject something as innocent as a pancake. Either way, he didn’t think anything of the situation that he was eating breakfast by himself, until the housekeeper, washing the skillet she’d used to cook, hummed a sad observation.

            “Mm. Two weeks is a long time.”

            “Long time for what?” He chewed through a mouthful of pancakes and syrup.

            “For that trip Mr. Stark went on.”

            He was in the middle of swallowing when his throat tightened. Two weeks was decidedly four days longer than the time he’d been grounded, and left only a measly four days afterward until he was due back at the boarding school. He’d only see Dad for less than a week, total. The ball of dough in his windpipe wouldn’t budge, fastened in place by a web of syrup. He bent over the table and gagged like a cat until finally he got it down. Meanwhile, the housekeeper glanced over her shoulder, a regretfully apologetic look on her face.

            “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

            “Don’t worry about it.” He beat his chest with his fist, clearing out the crumbs. “How’d you know? See him leaving?”

            “Packed his bags for him this morning. He left early. Before light.” She rinsed the skillet and was sliding it into the drying rack.

            “He say anything about going camping afterward?”

            She froze. “Er. No.”

            “Even say goodbye? Leave a note? Anything?”

            Suddenly, she seemed to notice a leftover stain on the skillet. She pulled it from the rack and huffed loudly, almost histrionically. “Just can’t get nothing clean around here.” She ducked toward the sink, her head hidden behind her shoulders. “Go on and eat in front of the TV. This kitchen’s going to be covered in Clorox in a minute.”

            He’d lost his appetite, so he left his plate and stood. At the door, he paused. “You’ll tell me if he calls?”

            “He’ll be back before you know it.”

            That meant Dad probably wouldn’t call. She knew it, and deep down, he knew it, too. Why did he even bother asking, sometimes? Why did he even bother existing, sometimes?

            He left the kitchen, and dragged his feet through the mansion in a haze. Every corner offered another hallway, and every hallway, a string of rooms. Some held libraries. Some held media, like the miniature theatre upstairs, where they had watched the old Captain America reels when he was young. One was even an anteroom for the backyard, where a heated pool and a wide, green pasture waited outside. But nothing was worthwhile. Every knob brought more numbness when he realized he was doomed to wander here, alone, until Dad returned.

            He found himself in the secret lab once again. Not bothering to turn on the lights, he dragged himself in front of the desk with the radio and plopped himself down. There was no telling where the spinning enigma was now, or if it was even still in the sky, with the stark daylight, but the satellite dish still appeared to be pointing the same direction. Dad had never readjusted it.

            He grabbed the receiver and squeezed. “Is it true that in space, no one can hear you scream?”

            Nothing but static. He coiled the spiral cord around his hand and slowly lowered his head to the desk. Maybe the white noise could lull him to sleep. And maybe, just maybe, he could hibernate the two weeks until Dad came back. But the crashing of soft, electrical waves was interrupted by a stutter in the tide.

            “CAN YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING? STAY OFF MY FREQ.”

            He jolted off the desk and nearly shattered his head against the squatting lamp above. It was that voice again, the same one from before, only this time it was louder. Had the signal gotten better? Or was the guy just angrier? He un-mummified his hand and brought the receiver to his mouth, not in the mood to sleep now that someone had screamed in his ear. “Who the hell are you?” Dad had said the satellite dish broadcasted far, far into space. That obviously wasn’t true. But if it was confined to Earth frequencies, its massive power meant he could be talking to anyone on the planet.

            “Who the hell am I? Who are _you_?” A pause. “Well? I’m looking.”

            “Looking for what? We’re talking through a radio.” Although he was suddenly very nervous that Dad had furbished the thing with some kind of camera. He brushed his fingers investigatively over the face before the radio barked at him and made him flinch.

            “DUH!” He turned down the volume. At this rate, loudmouth was going to pop the speakers. “I’m asking where you’re broadcasting from. And with what. There’s nothing but stardust on all sides of me for a million of miles. You’d need a pretty strong signal to manage that.”

            He glanced through the skylight, pretty sure the half-spherical beast above him counted as “pretty strong.” But his head snapped back to the radio on second thought. “Did you say stardust?”

            “You know. The stuff that stars poop after they die.”

             “I know. Never heard it described as that, though.” The shimmering lakes of cosmic sediment ghosting through space, compared to shit. He could almost like this guy if he wasn’t busy hating him. “I’m asking what that even means.”

            “It means I can’t see your ship. Anywhere. The sensors aren’t even picking it up.” There was a thoughtful moment of static. “Are you with the Nova?”

            “Who’s Nova?”

            “Sounds like something a Nova would say.”

            He drummed his fingers, irritated, on the roof of the radio. He didn’t even know what Nova was, but he didn’t want to be a part of it. “No. I’m with, er, Stark Industries.” The cover of anonymity was gone, but sometimes it took telling the truth to sound, well, truthful.

            Another pause of static. A long one. He almost thought he’d lost the signal, until finally came the response, “The Earth company?”

            Did Dad have branches on the moon? It wouldn’t surprise him, what with his new interest in things not of this planet. “The one and only.”

            “And you’re on a ship?”

            “Nope. In a house. But the pool outside’s probably big enough to fit a ship in— “

            “How are you getting this message out?” He cut him off, deadly with seriousness.

            “With… a satellite dish?” He looked up again. At first glance, the dish looked like any old thing that perched on the corners of suburban houses to capture TV signals, only supersized. Could it actually be another of Dad’s secret experiments? And here he was describing it to a stranger over the radio.

            “Listen, kid. I’m a long, long way from Earth. There’s no normal satellite dish that could reach me all the way out here.”

            “Not even if I could do a 360 Ollie Heel-flip off the inside of it?” Not really. Maybe with some practice. He hadn’t skateboarded since his rebellious phase, which was just a few weeks ago.

            “I’m halfway between 11B-19 and the Kree galaxy.”

            He stared at the radio. Suddenly, it all meshed together, the things he had heard. Stardust. Millions of miles. Ship. Galaxy. He was talking to some guy in his mother’s basement who had huffed too much model airplane glue and hallucinated he was on a spacecraft. Tony blew out a big exhale, though not as big as the volume of breath he’d wasted on this conversation. “Good one. Say hi to ALF for me.” Then he hooked the receiver in its cradle and pushed up from the desk.

            He should have just yanked the power cord out of the wall. Once he reached the door, he heard the speakers turn back on, calling to him. “Hello? Hello?” He ignored them and shut the door.


	3. Welcome Back

            Days passed slowly. It was like time itself had wandered out into the snow, licked a flagpole, and gotten stuck there, like the kid in that old Christmas movie.

            At some point, a blizzard knocked down powerlines and the backup generator kicked on. Tony spent the next week with the constant humming that thundered up from the basement, making sure to use as little electricity as possible so as not to strain the circuits. He left the lights off and played Atari in the dark.

            One evening—though it was hard to tell with not much light making it through the frosted windows—he woke slumped in front of the TV. The boss music for _Defender_ was still looping, the screen frozen on the “game over” message. He peeled himself up and shuffled to the kitchen in hopes of brewing cocoa to help warm up, but didn’t make it there. Something in the grand hall stopped him. Melted, watery footprints leading from the door, up the stairs. Dad was home.

            He changed course and headed up to Dad’s bedroom, but he wasn’t there napping away jetlag. He tried the office instead. There, Dad was untacking maps from the wall and flopping them onto his desk, beside an open briefcase filled with others.

            It was clear Tony wouldn’t be noticed until he spoke up. “Welcome home.”

            “Grab that letter opener for me. Don’t just stand there.”

            He unsheathed the letter opener from its holder and swung it around like a tiny light saber, then passed it to Dad, who used it to pry the maps from the walls. The largest one had cities in Africa marked with red pushpins.

            “What’s that?”

             “An itinerary.”

            He went cold. Dad was traveling again? But he’d just made it home.

            “For later, right?” He ducked his head. “We were supposed to go camping, remember?”

            “I remember saying we would talk about it.” Dad dragged the map to the opposite side of his desk and started to roll it up with hurried movements. “Plans have changed.”

            “So, you’re going to Africa now? For what?” He poked at the stack of maps on the desk. Apparently, only the top sheet was one. The one beneath was covered with constellations. The sheet jerked away as Dad stuffed it into the briefcase.

            “How many times do I have to remind you to not touch my things?”

            “You’ve been acting weird, Dad. What’s with those diagrams? And that radio in your lab? What’s so special about Africa that you can’t spend one weekend with me?” Dad wasn’t listening. Tony walked around the desk to get in his space, but Dad simply circled to the other side. No matter what he did, there was always a desk and a briefcase between them.

            “Important business.”

            “So, raising me isn’t important?”

            “No.”

            His chest tightened. Sometimes the feeling got so bad that he almost couldn’t breathe, but it always went away if he willed it hard enough. He imagined being made of metal, like a machine. No emotions, just steel.

            “You should stay.”

            Dad snapped the briefcase shut and dragged it off the desk. He headed to the door. “What was that?”

            “I said, you should stay. I’m only home for winter break. After that, it’s back to the boarding house for snobs you put me in. And after that, it’s college. I’m never going to have a chance to see you again like this.” He put his hand on Dad’s elbow. He was still wearing one of his suits. He hadn’t even changed since coming home, which meant he wanted to sneak in and out quickly, probably without him noticing. Maybe Dad knew that he wouldn’t be able to leave while Tony was looking him in the eye. “You’ll have a zillion other chances to go away. Just stay here. For once.”

            Dad looked at the hand on his arm, his eyes softening for just a second. Then he yanked free, turned, and left the room. The sound of the front door slamming rattled up from downstairs.

***

            The lab was the inside of a gyroscope. Tony swayed and stumbled as he walked the familiar path along the scaffolding, past Dad’s creations. Maybe he had had too much Jack Daniel's.

            Dad had been gone for only a day, and already his office had been ransacked, his inventions sabotaged, and the intercom system hacked. Tony sang along with the music pumping out of the overhead speakers, and added a personal remix:

            “ _The phone rings, in the middle of the night_

_I ask my dad what he’s gonna do with his life._

_‘Oh Tony dear, I’m going to Africa,’_

_‘Cause I love business, more than I love ya’.”_

            Scattered in Dad’s labs were a few clues for why he might have jetted off to Africa. Nothing was definitive; most of it was theorizing. But it was more of an explanation than he had been given. The first was a diagram that Dad had neglected to take with him, which detailed meteor impacts along the Ivory Coast. The second was an old hunk of circuits that looked like it had broken off a helicopter engine. Dad was always hoarding nuts and bolts, but this thing had been stored in the safe beneath his desk. Still, he couldn’t tell what was so special about it. He could only springboard off a recorded conversation on a cassette in Dad’s tape player. It was a crackling, fuzzy mess that sounded like it had been recovered from a ghost hunting expedition. He could only just make out a negotiation between Dad and some guy named Taneleer, who promised he would grant Dad some more scrap. For the right price.

            He caught himself on the desk, the same one that he always seemed to find himself at when he was depressed or up to no good. Now it was both. He grabbed the receiver and pressed it against his mouth.

            “You want to go camping?”

            Static.

            “I repeat, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

            More static. Then, “Hello? That you, kid?”

            “The one and only.” He hiccupped. “So, is that a yes or a no on the camping? I want to see some constellations.”

            “It’s a solid maybe. Everything OK on your end? You sound garbled.”

            “That’s just because I’m trying not to throw up. I drank a lot. And also I think I’m developing a stomach ulcer from extreme stress.” The line was quiet. He took a deep breath and started to vomit, not his lunch, but his feelings. “My Dad just skipped out on me to dig space rocks out of the Nigerian Gulf, and I’m never going to see him again. I think I’m the only guy alive who can say that. I also think I’m the only guy alive who wishes he was adopted.”

            “Not the only one.”

            He leaned forward. “You got bad parents, too, crazy guy? Are they crazy like you?”

            “One of them is.”

            He liked this. Mom had pushed him into seeing three or four different therapists when he first started drinking, and making delinquent science projects that blew up the school lab, but talking to those had never been like talking to this guy. For one, he didn’t need to worry about his feelings getting journaled and delivered to his parents after the session. Two, the guy was also talking about himself. And three, the guy was definitely crazy, so there was only a small chance that any of what he was saying would be remembered later.

            “Listen, kid. I need to ask you a serious question.”

            “Go for it.”

            A long, serious pause. “Who’s your favorite Ghostbuster?”

            He didn’t even blink. “Peter. Duh.”

            He could practically hear the guy grinning through the speakers. “That settles it. You really are from Earth.”

            “Oh. We’re talking about this again, huh?” He slumped over the desk, losing interest.

            “Do me a favor, kid. Leave this line open. I think I can trace it to wherever you are.”

            “And what do I get out of that?” he mumbled.

            “When I get to where you are, I’ll take you camping. On my ship. You ever been on one before? I’ll show you constellations like you’ve never seen.”

            “Sure, sure.” He bound the cord around the receiver so the button was held down and the line would stay open, broadcasting. “There. S’done.” Then he eased off the stool and onto the floor. Through the skylight, half the stars winked down at him, the other half blocked by the satellite dish. He blinked sleepily, then rolled over onto his side for safety, so he wouldn’t choke on his puke later.

            He dreamed that a beam of pale UFO light lifted him off the floor and carried him onto a spaceship that looked like the Enterprise. It was filled with little, furry Tribbles instead of people, but that was still better than his life on Earth. They whisked into the cosmos and trailed along different, spiraling galaxies.

            When he woke up, sunlight was driving stakes through his eyelids. He rolled over, away from the skylight, and registered a heavy pounding. Not in his head. It was coming from down the hall, as if someone were knocking on the door.

            He stumbled to his feet and wandered down the hall, and found the housekeeper battering the intercom system with a broom, growling, “I’m going to rip my hair out if I have to hear ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ one more time.”


	4. You OK?

            The painting drooped off the big, reflective wall in the entrance hall where everyone could see it. White-haired guy. Smart eyes. Tight mouth. Posing in a suit.

            Tony almost wondered why he let that portrait of Dad stick around. Stark Tower was his. That made him decorator-in-chief. But all that resentment that made him want to chuck the painting in a dumpster was a far-off feeling, like residual heat on an engine that had stopped running a long time ago. He felt nothing.

            “You OK, Tony?”

            He blinked. Happy stood next to him, staring.

            “Just went into a little caffeine coma. Spaced out.”

            “You sure you’re OK?” Happy put his arm around him, a nice comforting weight. A little soft, but hey. Being head of security meant ordering someone else to do the night-sticking and tackling, while he sat comfortably at a desk.

            “Positive—“

            The emergency alarm screeched from the ceiling.

            Happy squared himself in front of him, ready to take a bullet. “What is that? Fire? Shooter?”

            The alarms had different tones for different occasions. Made it easier to choose the appropriate amount of panic. “Airspace warning.”

            “Terrorist attack?” Happy drew his taser, as if he could shock down a kamikaze copter.

            “Who knows?”

            The portrait of dad stared at him through the ruckus of people hurrying into safe rooms and ducking under desks. His eyes were hard, almost alive. His mouth didn’t move, but it said, _You never could stay out of trouble. You asked for it._

            Happy yanked him back into reality, toward a storage closet. “Don’t stand there. We got to take cover.”

            “Or take initiative. What’s the saying? A pinch of ass-kicking is worth a pound of collateral damage?” He slipped out of Happy’s grasp and headed for the elevator, his legs fighting him the whole way. He’d had weeks to recover from the Civil War, but the fatigue stuck around. Sometimes he couldn’t even get out of bed. Thank Christ they didn’t give up on him now. He got into the elevator, gave Friday the order to get it moving again, and rocketed toward the lab.

            The doors hadn’t completely opened before he was darting out, spreading his arms like jet ready to take off. From every corner of the lab, hunks of red metal snapped onto his body like a protective skin. There weren’t any explosions or windows shattering yet, but he was sure that he would need the suit to fight off whatever was on his doorstep. He buckled his knees and launched through a porthole in the wall, directly into the sky.

            “Give me eyes, Friday. What am I looking for?”

            The morning New York sky was cloudless, but there wasn’t anything that looked like an aircraft. What did that mean? Cloaking?

            “Above you,” Friday said.

            His reflexes were too damn slow. He looked up in time to see a streak of metallic lightning plummet toward him at speeds that weren’t possible and it smashed down on his head and sent him tumbling toward the earth. His brain did somersaults inside his helmet, but all he could think was, _That thing’s going to wipe out the tower._

            He clenched his hand thrusters on and pointed them at the sidewalk, just meters below, and slowed his descent until he wasn’t falling anymore. Then he switched to boot thrusters and propelled toward the roof to catch the thing that had almost killed him before it could collapse the whole building.

            “Impact is imminent,” Friday said. “You’ve got five seconds. Seven, tops.”

            “That’s enough time to have brunch and still save the day.”

            He was closing in on the object, which was now clearly an arrowhead-shaped ship. He put up his hands to mitt it like an umpire. He got so close he could see his red-and-gold reflection in the ship’s skin, but his hands collided with a transparent shield, and he went skidding over the outside of it and slipped behind.

            Everyone inside the tower was going to be crushed under rubble. His hands went rigid and the glove thrusters accidentally kicked on, spinning him into a vomit-inducing twist.

            “Tony? Tony!” Friday said.

            He shut his eyes.

            “Look, Tony!”

            “I can’t.”

            “You’re going to want to see this.”

            Somehow, he forced his eyes open. Friday enhanced the place where he should be looking. On the roof of the tower—specifically, the landing pad—the ship kicked out landing gear, wobbling and struggling on its own thrusters, and steadily, gently touched down. He straightened out his trajectory and aimed himself at the roof. Whatever the people flying this weird ship wanted, it didn’t involve a suicide mission. He could reason with that, even if he had to force down his breakfast every few seconds he kept flying.

            Finally, he landed on the pad and stumbled into a stride. The ship stood imposing, like a bird of prey on the nature channel, before it snapped a worm into its beak, and the narrator marveled distantly at how beautiful life was.

            “How much power have I got left to play with?”

            “Lots,” Friday answered. “At least 80%.”

            “Channel it all into the blasters. Just in case.”

            He took a spot outside the ship and lifted the faceplate to speak. “Sorry, buddy. This is a no parking zone. You don’t want to get towed, do you?”

            Nothing.

            The wind whistled across the landing pad, kicking up dust. Finally, there was a hiss from the ship, and a ramp lowered from its belly. A set of dirty boots came halfway down.

            “This is Stark Industries, isn’t it?” the guy with the boots asked. Why did that voice sound so familiar? He treaded the rest of way down until he was standing on concrete, but Tony didn’t recognize his face. “I got an invitation.”

            “An invitation from who? I’m the owner of this place.”

            The guy shrugged. “Some kid. Said he was with Stark Industries. Maybe he’s your son or something.”

            That voice, that voice. Memories of stumbling around Dad’s old lab gnawed at the back of his skull. Suddenly, a loud, high pitched-whine came from nowhere. It sounded like an old engine kicking on, but the ship in front of him was quiet. He tried to check if it was his gloves glitching, but he couldn’t even lift his arms. They were frozen. He couldn’t even breathe. What the hell was happening?

            “Heartrate is rising,” Friday said. “Tony, I think you’re having a panic attack.”

            No shit.

            “You OK?” the man with the boots asked, walking closer.


	5. 1%

            Tony stood outside the mansion in snow up to his ankles. Probably should have worn boots or something, but instead he was wearing the same pair of black Converse he had gotten two years ago for the new school year. His feet had grown since then, and his toes were cramped inside. Still, it felt good to having something familiar close to his body. The mansion had started to turn into a place he didn’t recognize. Even now, he had to squint through the flakes falling into his eyes to remember that he lived here. Sort of. Well, not anymore.

            “Car’s warm now, Mr. Stark,” the driver said. He opened the backseat door and a puff of warmth escaped. “Did you forget anything?”

            He had packed four or five fat suitcases into the trunk with the driver’s help, and his arms ached from the exertion. Still, was he forgetting something? His thoughts traveled inside, to his bedroom, stripped raw, where he wouldn’t be coming back because after high school ended, he was heading straight for college. His thoughts moved down the hall, through the grand room, the kitchen, past Dad’s office, into the lab. Crumped Cheeto bags and graffiti and shoddy rewiring of the inventions.

            “Nah. I got everything.” He half-smirked.

            He ducked into the car and the door shut behind him with a dull thunk. The engine yawned. In a minute, he was being carried down the driveway toward the road, for the long drive and flight back to school. _Yay_.

            But wait, what about the radio?

            Tony rewound the memory in his head. The car reversed up the driveway and he crawled out and stared at the mansion again. He foggily remembered setting up the radio to stay on. Did he ever turn it off?

            His mind hit a wall and he felt just as light-headed as if he’d physically done that.

            “You OK?” the guy with boots said, coming closer.

            “Stay away from me.” He stumbled backward, putting his hands between them. “I’ve had one red witch dig around in my head already.”

            The guy glanced down at his red trench coat, then back up. “It’s OK. I come in peace, and stuff.”

            That voice. It sounded just the guy on the radio, who was just some crackpot pirating the airwaves. He knew talking to aliens was just a figment of a drunk teenager’s imagination. Still, how could this guy have the same voice and have landed in a real spaceship?

            “Christ. I’m losing it,” he breathed. He dropped to one knee so he wasn’t wasting energy with standing. He needed it all to force himself to calm down. It felt like Steve Rogers was running on a treadmill connected to his heart, pumping it faster and faster with each stupidly powerful stride.

            “I don’t want the first person I meet on Earth to die. That doesn’t look good on me.” The guy came closer and reached out. “Let’s get you to a hospital before you croak.”

            “I said stay back!” The glove blasters discharged into the guy’s chest and blew him off his feet and he skidded under the shadow of the spaceship, smoking from his rib cage.

            “I didn’t mean to do that. Friday?”

            “You told me to put everything into the blasters.”

            “As a precaution! I wasn’t actually going to ice someone!” He tried to get off his knee to help the guy, but his legs were even weaker than before, chest getting tighter. “Friday, put me on autopilot. Get me downstairs.”

            “Aye-aye.”

            The faceplate locked into place, and the strength of the suit lifted him to his feet. It strode toward the door on the landing pad that led downstairs, and the penthouse wasn’t far beyond that. But before he could reach for the knob, the suit threw itself down and rolled on the concrete.

            “What the hell are you doing?”

            “Evasive maneuvers. The big guy had a friend.”

            The suit stopped rolling in time for him to get his bearings. A woman—a _green_ woman; what was this, Star Trek?—charged toward him and raised her sword, ready to dagger it through his face. The suit rolled again and the blade bit into the landing pad just centimeters from his head.

            “You said this would be a vacation. Why are people attacking us?” She was shouting to the big guy.

            “Attacking _you_?” Tony gasped. Friday pushed him to his feet and thrusted backward as another swing threatened his chest. The green woman wasn’t giving up. She darted forward and aimed the sword low to lop off a leg, which Friday barely jerked away in time. Metal shavings from the suit landed on the ground.

            “Should I fight back?” Friday asked.

            “No. Just get me out of here. Let one of the empty suits tag in.”

            Friday jetted into the air, but grounded hard when a gunshot rang out.

            “I got your back, Tony!” Happy had burst through the landing pad door and had his pistol lined up with the green woman. He was panting hard, probably from running up the million flights of stairs to get here. “You’re an angry stick of broccoli, ain’t you, lady?”

            “You will regret saying that.” She glared. “But after I’m finished with him.” She took the opportunity of Tony being on the ground to raise her sword, execution style. Friday lifted his arms protectively. Well, not protectively. The sword would carve through the metal like nothing. But losing an arm was better than losing a head, right?

            A bullet caught her shoulder and she cried out. She lowered the sword to cover the wound.

            “All the action is over here. C’mon,” Happy taunted.

            Happy didn’t quite get what he asked for when a dog tumbled out of the spaceship wielding a rifle. “You broughtta sword to a gun fight, Gamora. I got this,” it said. Then it took aim at Happy.

            Tony clenched his eyes shut. “Friday, I can’t trust my eyes anymore. I need you to describe what’s going on.”

            “You’re not seeing wrong, Tony. That’s a raccoon.”

            The raccoon cackled as it loosed a bullet at Happy, who must have dug deep into his cop training to remember how to do a somersault. He landed without getting shot, but it looked like he’d scraped an elbow and was about to vomit. He shakily raised his gun at the raccoon.

            Friday lunged forward to block the shot—but the green woman intercepted and swung her sword at Tony’s throat.

            “WAIT!”

            It was the big guy. He had stumbled to his feet and was doubled over, clutching his chest where he’d been blasted. A metal breastplate glinted from underneath his trench coat. Thank Christ.

            “All of you, stop it. We just got here. Stop fighting.”

            The raccoon kept its paw depressed hallway onto the trigger of the rifle, but didn’t fire again. The green woman somehow had enough muscle control to stop mid-swing, with her sword inches from Tony’s neck. They were both staring at the big guy in the red trench coat. He must have been their leader.

            The big guy tugged a weird space-pistol off his belt and aimed it at Tony.

            “Pop the hood.”

            Friday projected her voice outside the suit. “No chance.”

            The big guy squinted. “I don’t know who _you_ are, but pop the hood before I pop it myself.” The pistol hummed to life, ready to fire.

            “Tony?”

            “Do it,” Tony gasped.

            The faceplate lifted. Cold, fresh air hit his face, which he ate in gulps, but it wasn’t satisfying the still growing panic. Probably the only reason he hadn’t suffocated so far was because adrenaline was forcing his airway open. The suit carefully unhinged, everything on the front of his body folding open until just the outline was there to keep him on his feet. His own chest was heaving into and out of his line of sight.

            “You need to help your friend,” the big guy said, to Happy.

            Happy didn’t take his eyes off the raccoon for a long time, still aiming his gun at it. Then he glanced over. The frown-lines on his face deepened. He must have remembered his job was to protect Tony, not just shoot his gun, because he clambered to his feet and jogged over.

            “I got you.” Happy tugged him out of the suit and supported his weight.

Happy felt damp through his shirt, from the stairs and the stress, but it was a nice, you’re-saving-my-life kind of damp.

            Happy dragged him to the door, kicked it open. Then they eased into the darkness inside. He clearly wasn’t taking his eyes off the gang on the landing pad for as long as he could.

            “See?” the big guy said, his voice fading with distance. “I never thought I’d be the one saying this, but you guys don’t have to solve everything with violence. Just maybe 99% of things. This was the 1%.”


	6. Not That Sorry

            Happy carried Tony into the penthouse’s main room, deposited Tony on the couch, and then flopped down beside him, breathing hard.

            “I think I’m having an angina,” Happy wheezed.

            “Have your angina quietly,” Tony said, breathing just as hard, then shutting his eyes and blocking out the world. He needed quiet. Inside his mind, the panic was a black hole in the middle of space, dragging him into it, scrabbling and desperate. He had been in this same position a dozen times before and had something like an algorithm for handling it. First, he untensed every muscle in his body, from his fingers to his shoulders to the point between his eyes. Then he exhaled. Let go, he told himself. In his mind, he passed through the black hole, and came through the other side, still in one piece. Blinking open his eyes a few minutes later, sweat covered his forehead and stuck his shirt to his chest.

            “You OK?”

            “I’ll live,” Happy said, breathing less like an overweight pit bull. “You?”

             Before he could answer, Friday chimed in over the speakers. “You have a message.”

            “Tell them I’ll call back. I’m not home. Also, there’s aliens on my roof.” He couldn’t believe he was calling them that, but, well, what else could you call a green woman and a talking raccoon in a spaceship?

            “Not that kind of message. It’s from the aliens,” she clarified. The projector that usually put in its work showing movies and news updates flashed onto the opposite wall, giving the camera feed from the roof. The man in the trench had his hands cupped around his mouth and was shouting down the corridor that he and Happy had escaped through. It was too far away to hear him normally, but the video feed picked up his voice and pumped it through the speakers.

            “Huge misunderstanding!” he shouted. “Sorry you almost got shot and dismembered!”

            “Boy, do I hate that,” Happy said. He thrusted his hand at the screen. “That’s not how you give an apology. First, you acknowledge what happened. Then you take responsibility. And then you promise not to do it again. They’re skipping steps two and three. They’re making it sound like it’s our fault we got in the way of their guns and swords.”

            “You’re right. You know what would fix this situation? Teaching them proper apology techniques. I’ll give them a few Dr. Phil books and we can call this thing a wrap.”

            Happy grumped at him. “Just saying.”

            “Friday, where’s the suit?”

            “In the lab, Tony. You might want to think twice before going out to fight again. It was a close shave the last time.”

            “I’m not going to fight them.” He stood from the couch and headed into the kitchen area, where he bent over the sink and splashed cold water onto his face to get the dried sweat off. To hell with it; he tugged off his shirt, balled it up, and dropped it on the floor.

            “What are you going to do?” Friday and Happy seemed to ask in unison.

            “I’m going to take a shower. Keep an eye on things. Don’t let Han Solo and his gang of misfits out of your sight.” He crossed the main room to his bedroom and shut the door behind.

***

            Tony straightened his tie in the mirror. To be powerful, you had to feel powerful. He’d slipped into his best Armani suit and gelled his hair. It wasn’t the kind of outfit with blasters and shields, but it was its own kind of armor, more diplomatic in its functions. If the aliens were apologizing—even if it wasn’t a correct apology, according to Happy—there was a chance they were open to talking out their differences. He would do everything he could to keep a misunderstanding from rocketed into a full-blown war like it had between the Avengers.

            When he stepped out of his bedroom, the screen was still up, showing the spaceship still parked on the roof. Happy poked his head out of the fridge when the door opened.

            “You look spiffy,” Happy said.

            “If I’m going to be the first person to make contact with aliens, you can bet it’s going to make the front page.” He creased his lapels to give his hands something to do other than shake. He could use a drink. Even though he’d put down the bottle a long time ago, special occasions like these made him consider bending the rules. No. He needed to be sober, focused, and on his game. He headed for the door.

            “You’re going to need backup if they start shooting again,” Happy said, clambering behind him.

            Tony put up his hand to stop him. “Having backup is probably going to make them think there’s a reason to shoot. You stay here, hold down the fort.”

            He stepped into the elevator and let it carry him to the maintenance floor, where the staircase led to the roof. The door at the top was still open and letting sunlight into the dusty, cramped room below. He could hear the beating of helicopter blades up there. Here went nothing.

            He took the steps slowly and one at a time. There were only about ten of them, but he felt like he had climbed many more than that when he finally stepped out into sunlight.

             He slapped on a pair of Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses and waved at the circling helicopters. At first, he assumed they were from news stations, but the mounted artillery showed they were government. It was surprisingly they hadn’t landed to wrangled up the extraterrestrials already. They had probably missed the shootout on the roof. For the time being, they floated just out of the tower’s airspace, waiting for any reason to rush in and intervene.

            The ramp on the ship lowered again, and the man with the trench strode out followed by the rest of his gang.

            “Sorry about what happened,” the man said.

            “Water under the bridge.” He flashed a polite smile and stuck out his hand to shake and play nice.

            The man just stared at it, not coming closer.

            So, trench-guy was sorry about what happened, but not _that_ sorry. His eyes kept flicking to the perimeter, watching the choppers. His guard was up.

            “Forget about those guys. They always do that.” Tony waved his hand dismissively at the helicopters. “I think you and I should get to talking. Sounds like we’ve got some… catching up.” That was the best word for it. Decades had passed since he had last heard this voice. He took a step backward toward the open door.

            Trench-guy looked at his gang and nodded, and they all advanced as a unit.

            Tony stopped, and so did they. “I meant alone.”

            “Why alone?” the green woman barked.

            Her voice was like hard metal, and it didn’t stir up any old memories. That was half the reason Tony wasn’t interested in the rest of these people coming along. The other half was keeping his limbs attached. “I came up here alone. I think it’s only fair.”

            “And how many soldiers do you have in this building?” the woman asked.

            “Well, there isn’t anywhere else. We could go somewhere neutral, like a Starbucks.” He flicked his eyes at the flock of helicopters. “See how far you get with that.”

            “What is a Starbucks?” she asked.

            Trench-guy held up his hand. “I think what she’s trying to say is, we don’t travel alone if we don’t know the terrain.”

            Tony hadn’t been lying when there wasn’t anywhere else to go. Going into the tower sounded like a trap to these guys, and the helicopters kept them from finding another location. All they had was the roof, essentially. Just a flat top of concrete with the spaceship planted in the center. Then it hit him.

            “What about your ship?”

            They stared at him.

             “You know the terrain. I’m willing to talk things out inside, if no one comes along.”

            Trench-guy held up a finger. “Give us a second.” He turned around and his gang huddled up like a football team planning their defense. All Tony could overhear was the racoon occasionally telling the big guy he was an idiot. Things didn’t look good.

            “We’ll do it,” trench-guy said.

            OK, this was actually happening. He smoothed out his blazer and stepped forward, the team of aliens parting as he followed the guy in the trench into the ship. The green woman glared hard, and the raccoon spit at his feet.

            He climbed into the body of the ship, and the ramp shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is on hiatus.
> 
> I realized I was not fulfilling many of the promises the story suggested at its beginning and it subsequently wandered off track. In the meantime I'm clearing my head with a different fic, but I plan to return to this afterward and revamp it to be even better.
> 
> Sorry to disappoint anyone who wanted more of this, but it will return in a new version.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed.
> 
> I'll be in the process of updating.


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